Look at TSMC. It started setting up US operations years ago and is expecting to complete many years from now.

OTOH they started setting up in Japan about a year or so ago and are already cranking out chips.

TSMC is looking to bail completely on the second fab / even intel is now looking at delaying. The problem we are running into is a lot of DEI language was included in the chips act which is making it hard for TSMC (and Intel) to comply. This is not a good PR move to say this outright so they will just give more generic "labor" shortages etc as the official reason.

The government needs to address that instead of subsidizing one off efforts.

Perhaps American workers. But an alternate take is that American consumers got cheaper chips and PCs - which resulted in more being sold, more companies and people using them, greater efficiency and new ideas and perhaps a more productive economy.

It will be interesting in 5-10 years if the US needs to tax/block possibly cheaper and better components built outside the US being sold

That may be true for Intel's CPUs but when products aren't produced by monopolies, those that have the cheapest costs and are in competition with others, often lower their prices to compete where the competitor can't. For example: AMD, graphics and motherboard parts

My understanding is that the price should never be set based on production cost but on the value it brings to the customer. Thereby, a simple program you or I could hack together in a month, might have a cost of 10k in labor only cost, but if it would save the customer millions each year, they would pay a million for it.

So, you set the cost based on how much they are willing to pay, based on how much they would profit/save.

If another competitor offers a similar solution, you just undercut them by 10%, or invest another 10k for superior features.

Is that market so poor that subsidies really is needed on the basis of profitability?

AT&T would have zealously guarded the transistor patent and never have licenced it out to Motorola, TI, etc. if they only cared about maximising shareholder value.